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Building Extraordinary Brands

Should we put our logo on that?

Our guide to exceptional merchandise.

By Dan Rowell

05 March 2019

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When I started out, I put my brand on everything possible. Hell, our name is DSR BRANDING isn’t it?! We had caps, polo shirts, notepads and even Titleist golf balls, at a cool $8 a pop! I was like a 4-year-old who had just learnt to write his name and was now scribbling it all around the house. Do I regret it? No, not really, except for maybe the golf balls (it’s even more frustrating hitting your own branded golf ball into the water on the 17th at Keperra).

In this article I’m going to give you our 5-step questionnaire to ask yourselves before committing to merchandise. I’ll show you a few of our favourite examples of exceptional merchandise, plus for start-ups or people on a budget I’ll show you how you can bootstrap a few branded products.

I regularly see the merchandise enthusiasm I had with our clients. We finalise their brand identity and it begins. Full steam ahead. Corporate collateral rolls into umbrellas, caps, totes, uniforms and laptop stickers. It’s exciting, but through excited over-ordering it can often mean the merchandise ends up collecting dust in storage. At a time where cashflow can be tight, that money could be put to better use.

I do think new brands and rebrands differentiate here. If you’re only just starting out, my advice is to err on the side of caution and take the merchandise order slowly. While the natural temptation is to launch with gusto, biding your time and learning more about your customers and what they truly value is safer.

Our approach to merchandise is the same as our approach to branding: do it well, less is more and don’t be cheap. Importantly, make sure it’s it appropriate to your business’ values.

Years ago I worked on a rebrand for a company who specialised in 4WD and mine-fleet rentals. Upon their rebrand they almost greenlit the production of 10,000 stubby coolers and bottle openers, quite a contradiction with their core value of ‘road safety’… Luckily we settled on caps and water bottles instead.

With any merchandise, we always want to design for the application, rather than just plonking the logo as prominently as possible on as many places as possible. Unless, of course, we’re doing a V8 Falcon at Bathurst.

5 questions to escape mindless merchandising

To avoid common pitfalls in your quest for exceptional merchandise we’ve put together a quick 5-step questionnaire to ask yourself and your team before putting your logo on something.

Would you be excited to receive it and use it? If not, that’s probably your answer.

Does it bring out the best in your brand? Does your logo look good? Are the colours on-brand?

Do you have a reason for being there? Does it make sense for your logo to be on there?

What’s the shelf-life? Will it quickly expire or become redundant? E.g. branded headphones with a headphone jack, or a 2019 wall calendar.

Does it live up to your brand promise? If you’re trying to promote a high quality, premium brand, cheap merchandise that breaks or doesn’t last will poorly represent you.